RUSH: Well, this is just getting hilarious now. ‘Every citizen could get a 401(k) retirement account and up to $1,000 in annual matching funds from the government under a plan offered Tuesday by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. At a cost of $20 billion-$25 billion a year,’ ahem, ‘the plan is Clinton’s largest domestic proposal other than her plan for universal health insurance. The New York senator said it would be paid for by taxing estates worth more than $7 million per couple and would help narrow the gap between the rich and those who don’t have enough savings for retirement. At the same time, Clinton said she has given up another idea for a savings incentive — giving every baby born in the United States a $5,000 account to one day pay for college or a first home. She made that suggestion last month before the Congressional Black Caucus, saying it was just an idea and not a policy proposal. The idea was criticized by Republicans, and she told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Tuesday that it’s off the table.’ Now, I wonder why it’s off the table? Why, all of a sudden, would $5,000 per baby born in America be off the table? Well, I don’t really know.
I could guess that that would open the flood gates to people saying, ‘Wait a minute! If $5,000 bucks in my account from the moment I’m born is going to lead to all these wonderful things, how come we can’t privatize a portion of my Social Security and invest it the same way, hmm?’ I would bet you a dollar to a doughnut that’s why she pulled it. I’ll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that I offered that very analysis of it is why she pulled it, because if you get five grand the moment you’re born and you put it in the bank or put it somewhere where it’s invested and it’s supposed to lead to all these wonderful things — a big new house and a college degree and so forth — why, I guess it doesn’t matter that the market pans and you won’t lose your money like they said you might, and I guess it doesn’t matter that $5,000 given to babies when they’re born would enrich stockbrokers and asset managers? That’s all the criticisms they mounted with the privatization of a portion of Social Security contributions. I think we beat that back, folks. No wonder that smear happened. So now it’s a simple 401(k), which is already in existence, already has proven to be popular, already an investment vehicle. So she lied to the CBC. She lied. Yes, I’m positive it’s not the 401(k) and the $5,000. It’s off the table. As soon as she told it to the Congressional Black Caucus it was off the table. She got the message out to them, she left the room, and she pulled it off the table.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: One thing I forgot to mention about her new scheme to pull the $5,000 per baby off the table and replace it with a 401(k) retirement account ‘and up to $1,000 in annual matching funds from the government.’ We already do that. Well, the government doesn’t. The employer does. Whatever. How she’s going to pay for this is taxing estates worth more than $7 million per couple. How many programs has she proposed where she’s going to ‘pay for it’ by taxing the rich? I think she’s taxed them into poverty with all of her proposals. She gonna tax ’em for health care. She gonna tax ’em for the 401(k) plan. She’s going to tax the rich for virtually every program, because what she’s doing is playing the class envy card. She’s sitting here suggesting that she wants to ‘narrow the gap’ between the wealthy and the poor and the middle class and so forth, and she wants to do it by taking everybody’s money and redistributing it — which sounds suspiciously like this asinine column I read to you yesterday from Sunday by this guy named Robert Frank.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Carl in Tampa, Carl, nice to have you sir. About a minute left. I wanted to get to you.
CALLER: Okay, I’ll make it quick then. That $10,000 or $5,000 that Hillary was going to give to the kids?
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: Not only would they make money off of it, but they’d also wind up in debt unless we changed the present tax code, because at the end of each year, they have to pay taxes on the interest earned on that $10,000. So you give that to a baby that’s born, and he doesn’t receive it ’til he’s 19 years old, imagine the interest that’s accumulated that you have to pay taxes on.
RUSH: Yeah, that’s how the government would get some of it back. That’s a good point, I hadn’t thought of it, Carl, because I was so focused on the inanity of the idea in general.
CALLER: Yeah, and does it go into a trust fund or how do you keep the parents from touching it?
RUSH: Oh, no, no, no, no. If the parents touch it, it’s because the parents were going broke because of previous Republican policies, and they had no choice but to touch it. It will be replaced.
CALLER: I’m looking to get that wide-screen TV like you got. So, you know, that money will come in handy real quick.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: If it’s available and easy access, all I gotta do is have another kid, then I get a stereo to go with it.
RUSH: That’s exactly right, (laughing) keep having kids, that’s right, and eventually you can buy a mansion.
CALLER: You know it, and have a place to put them. It’s been a good one, Rush. Enjoy listening to you.
RUSH: (laughing) It has, Carl.